The United Steelworkers labor union brought a case to the Court of International Trade on Sep. 4 arguing that a Commerce Department scope ruling, which excluded a certain type of temporary tire from antidumping duties on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from Taiwan, had misunderstood the language of the AD order it had drawn from (United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC v. U.S., CIT # 24-00165).
A domestic glycine producer said Sept. 3 that it hadn’t needed to exhaust its administrative remedies prior to coming to court because it had never had the chance to seek a remedy in the first place (Deer Park Glycine, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 23-00238).
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 4 heard oral argument in a tariff classification case on electrical conduit imported by Shamrock Building Materials. Judges Richard Taranto, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham asked whether the conduit had an insulating function and whether there is a de minimis amount of insulating material a conduit needs to include to qualify for classification under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8547 (Shamrock Building Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1648).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 5 said a CBP headquarters ruling on see-through pop-up tent "pods" that differed in outcome from a previously decided protest didn't require public notice-and-comment because the protest wasn't a "prior interpretive ruling or decision." Judge Timothy Reif dismissed one of importer Under the Weather's counts in its customs classification case on the pods, finding that the prior protest approval wasn't the result of "considered deliberations," didn't have "prospective effect" and wasn't "interpretive."
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 4 dismissed a case from importer InterGlobal Forest challenging CBP's premature liquidation of hardwood plywood entries subject to an Enforce and Protect Act investigation after the company failed to state a reason to continue the case. In a previous order, Judge Mark Barnett noted that after litigation led to a negative evasion finding, CBP reliquidated InterGlobal's entries and canceled the bills for the payment of duties (InterGlobal Forest v. United States, CIT # 20-00155).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 3 dismissed a customs case from importer Dover Street Market NY for lack of prosecution. The court said that because the case wasn't removed from the customs case management calendar at the "expiration of the applicable period of time of removal," the case is dismissed for failure to prosecute. The importer brought the suit in August 2021 to challenge CBP's denial of its duty drawback claims (Dover Street Market NY LLC v. U.S., CIT # 21-00420).
An importer of stainless steel sinks from China filed its motion for judgment in a case it brought in 2020 challenging CBP’s assessment of antidumping and countervailing duties on the entire declared value of its products despite “express instructions” to do otherwise (R.H. Peterson v. U.S., CIT # 20-00099).
The International Trade Commission and an exporter of aluminum extruders Aug. 29 each opposed a petitioner’s motion for judgment that claimed the ITC had altered usually reliable data to reach a negligibility finding regarding extrusions from the Dominican Republic. The alteration was both established by law and necessary, they said (U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition v. United States, CIT # 23-00270).
On appeal, the U.S. supported Court of International Trade Judge Jane Restani’s decision that imported weekly/monthly planners were properly classified as “diaries” under heading 4820 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (see 2404100052). The decision subjected the importer to Section 301 tariffs (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).
Parties in an antidumping duty case at the Court of International Trade continued their dispute on whether the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo should eliminate any deference shown to the Commerce Department's definition of the term "partners" in 19 U.S.C. Section 1677(33) (Ventura Coastal v. U.S., CIT # 23-00009).